The Street

The Kickstarter campaign for WICK, the “no-stress black dress” created by Liz Lian ’15, will go live this week. WICK, a clothing line created last year by Lian and Sanibel Chai of UPenn, is designed with the collegiate party scene in mind – the dresses, skirts, and tops have pockets and are made of fabric that is both comfortable and easy to wash.

The Wickstarter is complete with backer rewards including discounted first-run apparel and hand written thank you notes, a testimonial from Caroline Reese, and a video detailing how WICK can change a night out. Until the launch you can preview the page and leave feedback.

The Instagram account of Total Frat Move, boasting 214,000+ followers, recently posted a picture of the University Cottage Club’s fourth and final “Sunday Funday” of the year. The caption to the photo read “Sunday Funday #TFM.” According to the top definition on Urban Dictionary, the phrase TFM is “used in response or to describe an action of a male who exudes all things fraternity.” Presumably #TFM was used to express approval of the pictured event’s “Country Funday” theme, where attendees dressed with a focus on displaying their love of America.

Sunday Fundays take place on every Sunday of April for Cottage Club members and approved guests. These “Fundays” are centered around sunbathing, day-drinking, and photography.

Total Frat Move is a college humor website. The picture (and the TFM Instagram account) is viewable online.

“Underclassmen have late meal. Upperclassmen have passes. Sounds like an easy fix to us,” reads the About page for Passes For Late Meal, a website where students can exchange late meal swipes for eating club passes.

Students can either post an offer and wait for a match, or email people who have already posted offers. Once a student has posted an offer, his or her name is replaced (often with cutesy titles like “Passtafarian” or “LouisPassteur”) to maintain anonymity. When an underclassman is matched with an upperclassman, the site sends an email to both parties to coordinate the exchange.

Some underclassmen expressed that they are conflicted about whether to use the service.

“I think it’s a brilliant idea, especially because I rarely use late meal,” a freshman, who asked to remain anonymous, said. “But I don’t want to be judged by upperclassmen for being desperate for passes.”

UPDATE: The website was recently taken down since the University felt it violated their dining hall contract. See our good friends at the Daily Princetonian for the full story.

The USG Social Committee has announced that the electronic artist Basshunter will perform at Princeton on Dean’s Date (this year, January 15). The format of the show, however, will not fit the conventional “rave” experience, as attendees will wear headphones hooked up with a direct stream of the DJ set. No music will be played aloud, creating what’s referred to as a “Silent Disco” in which onlookers can see a group of ravers dancing… in silence. Apparently, the concept was fashioned at the Glastonbury Festival as a workaround for local noise violations. We’ve also received word that the committee is hoping to hold the event outdoors, but there’s no confirmation available as-of-yet.

You can find out more here–the Social Committee has an entertaining trailer up-and-running on their site. Basshunter is best known for such rave tunes as “Now You’re Gone” and “Dota”. Hopefully, he makes for a pretty good Dean’s Date performer.

Over the next few weeks, and in no particular order, The Ink will be taking you on a journey down Prospect Ave., colloquially known as The Street . Check back for 21Qs with all eleven eating club presidents.

What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton? Every meal at Terrace is like a blissful melody to my stomach. (Thanks Olin. Thanks Ben. Thanks 4th Course)

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day? Everything every other college student does, always grateful for the amazing people I get to interact with, sharing in Food and Love and appreciation for our shared mother.

Favorite spot in Terrace. The newly remade pool-room (also known as the Willard Room).

What club did you think you’d be in as a freshman and why? Terrace, because it was the only place on campus that felt like home.

[WARNING: THIS IS NOT A DOCTORED IMAGE] This is a picture of this year’s surprisingly dope Pi Phi tank, but with a sizeable, screen-printed emblem of baby Jesus on the back, perhaps an egregious printer error, perhaps a sign from the Big Man Upstairs…

Hold up, wait, what? Take another look. Nearly 200 Pi Phi sisters ordered upwards of 200 of these guys. The first size-small tank picked out of the box, the only christened one of the bunch – baby Jesus.

Delve into this right quick: it looks like there’s a real Jesus chilling at the bottom of the circle being pampered by a couple of biblical-looking people, which also might be statues, and a shining baby Jesus placed front and center occupying the attention of the rest of the people-statues. Additionally, you can see a tall unidentifiable object on the right hand side, which, by my educated guess, resembles a really tall parakeet, also some hovering angels and a gargoyle. I doubt that this printing mistake was deliberate. I also wonder who would ever order a tank top (or really any article of clothing) with something like this on it, i.e., why (a) this particular screen print even exists and (b) it would ever come near a black tank top, specifically one within a custom t-shirt facility capable of producing the design on the front side.

I’m not going to dig very deep in to this mystery since I think this is one of those things that is better left unexamined, especially considering the religious persuasion often associated with the group (Pi Phi realigning itself with phamily values?). But just to be clear, the rest of the gear had no extraneous religious artwork, no printing error, no baby Jesus scene – a description which I promise understates the peculiarity of the item. This tank, which is currently (and forever) in my possession, may be the most meaningful piece of sorority-related gear to grace this campus. I’m talking ‘Virgin Mary grilled cheese’ status.

[caption id="attachment_11697" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Coming to an eating club near you"][/caption]

Good news for all of you who are 1) somewhat hiphop-inclined, and 2) looking for some hope to keep you afloat in these trying pre-Dean’s Date times. Madlib, one of the finest producers alive, will be performing at Terrace on Tuesday night. A Madlib beat is an odd specimen, radiating the hazy warmth of vinyl, constantly teetering on the verge of a groove before twitching and fracturing and meandering away to explore some other musical thought. He often eschews the typical hook-verse-hook template in favor of weirder, looser song structures, all the while sampling voraciously and multiculturally. Sometimes he raps, too. Maybe we’ll hear some of that at Terrace, but his beats alone will be more than enough to satisfy. Maddeningly prolific, he’s dropped tape after tape of instrumentals (see especially his jazz-inflected stuff), but he might be best known for his collaborations with rappers. Most recently with Freddie Gibbs, most mainstreamly with Mos Def, and probably best of all with MF Doom — their brainchild, Madvillainy, ranks among the top rap records of the last decade, and every time my stomach sinks with the dread of Tuesday 5 PM I just think about prospect of hearing some of those beats live. Hear the flute loop on this song and know that everything will be okay:

Opening acts Shigeto and Dabyre are sure to impress as well. Terrace sets are hard to predict, but I can’t imagine Madlib himself will go on anytime before 12:40 or so. Go listen.

QUAD PRESIDENT JULIA BLOUNT CARBO-LOADS IN THE LIBRARY, DISLIKES CLASS-BASED HOUSING, INTENDS TO ATTEND EVERY REUNION

Name: Julia BlountHometown:Washington, DCMajor:History with a certificate from the Center for African American StudiesClub and Residential College Affiliation: The Princeton Quadrangle Club, Rockefeller College

What are you doing this summer?I am teaching fifth grade grammar at a public charter school in Brooklyn, NY and loving every minute of it!

What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?I love food! I think it is a tie between Quad’s Thanksgiving Dinner and Teresa Caffe’s Conchiglie Balsamico.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?Check my email, respond to email, go to class, have meetings at Quad, work at Quad, have philosophical conversations at Quad, and sleep…briefly.

Favorite spot in Quad?There’s no contest. Definitely the Large Library! Despite the name, very few books are ever read in the Large Library. Distraction takes on various forms including Jenga, Bananagrams, impromptu readings of Shakespeare and Cosmo, and intense philosophical conversations. Also, lots of carbo-loading on snacks provided by my wonderful Activities Chairs.

What club did you think you’d be in as a freshman and why?When I was a freshman I thought I would go independent! I love cooking so I really wanted to live in Spelman where I could have my own kitchen. Then I realized that Quad’s chefs are better cooks than me. And now I get to live two floors above Quad’s kitchen!

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?Sleeping through brunch and then eating way too much for dinner.

If you could change one thing about Princeton, what would it be?I would eliminate housing based on class year. I like the residential college system, but as an upperclassman who does not have a shared meal plan, I feel like I’m very inaccessible to younger students and vice versa. Sometimes where you live restricts your social life. Alternately, your social life can restrict where you live. I wish there were more intermingling.

What’s hanging above your desk and/or bed?A stuffed panda bear.

What is your biggest fear?Being pushed through the Fitz-Randolph Gates.

What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?
Explorers Pub Night at Charter. We had exotic meats from all over the world, including Yak burgers, pheasant sausages, Crocodile nuggets, and kangaroo meatballs.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
Search for new and exciting ways to avoid doing my work.

Favorite spot in Charter?
The computer cluster. Members go to the library when they actually want to work, but they go to the cluster when they want to procrastinate on their work, so you can always bet on some fun conversations, Sporcling or YouTube videos.

What club did you think you’d be in as a freshman and why?
I knew the most people in either Tower or Terrace so probably one of those.

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Tea. I drink it all the time and I help run Tea Time every Wednesday afternoon at Charter.

If you could change one thing about Princeton, what would it be?
I would put it somewhere besides New Jersey.

More than a year after President Tilghman intimated the possibility of an full-on Greek ban, a few months after the residential and social life working group released their much-discussed report, and with the images of vigorous student/administration debate fresh in our collective memories, the U. has finally announced a policy change. It’s a two-pronged ban: freshman are forbidden from affiliating with Greek organizations, and members of the other three classes are forbidden from conducting rush for freshman. (Meanwhile, the university will continue to withhold official recognition of Greek organizations.) The ban goes into effect in fall 2012, so the upcoming school year will be business as usual. In a letter to returning students, Tilghman justified the decision as an attempt to recenter student life around the residential colleges, the Street, and the “shared experience of essentially all undergraduates living and dining on campus.”

Yet the most interesting ramification of this new policy — exactly how the administration plans to police something as wide-ranging and hazily defined as “rush” — remains to be seen. Later in the letter, Tilghman explained her intention to form a new committee this year, which will seek

to consult widely with interested students; to think carefully about precisely how the prohibition should be described and enforced, and about the penalties that would be imposed for infractions; and to bring forward its recommendations by early in the spring semester so they can be discussed by the broader University community prior to adoption.

The letter also manages to somewhat awkwardly shoehorn in details about an upcoming campus pub, which, although promising, is profoundly benign news, and probably the only one of the working group recommendations that could be deemed completely uncontroversial.

… so we’ll stick with the controversial stuff. To gauge the Greek response to this announcement, The Ink spoke to Jake Nebel ’13, one of the students most deeply (and publicly) involved in the Greek conversation with the adnimistration. A member of the AEPi fraternity, Nebel spearheaded the Princeton Greek Council and drafted a pro-Greek petition that gathered over 700 signatures.